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BANGKOK: Thailand's Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said on Wednesday after a visit to Myanmar that the junta leaders would not allow foreign experts into the country to guide the cyclone relief effort.
After a brief visit aimed at nudging the military government to accept a full-scale disaster response, Samak said he was also told that 600,000 cyclone survivors are sheltering in 600 camps.
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"They insisted they can take care of their people and their country. They can manage by themselves," he told reporters after a two-and-a-half-hour meeting with Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein.
"Myanmar doesn't want any foreign experts," he said, adding that the regime indicated it would consider visa applications, which have been lodged by dozens of foreign aid workers, "on a case-by-case basis."
Samak said Thein Sein told him many survivors of the devastating May 3 cyclone, which pummelled the main city Yangon as well as the southern Irrawaddy Delta region, were taking refuge in camps set up at temples and schools.
"They have 600 shelters to help people and each shelter has around 1,000 people," the Thai leader said, adding that he had been taken to visit one of the camps.
Samak indicated the regime had a bullish attitude to its response in the cyclone aftermath, despite United Nations assessments that many of the two million people in need of food, water and shelter have not received aid.
"They said they can get things done by themselves," Samak said. "They said they have plenty of food in the country, enough to feed themselves."
He said the general claimed they had restored much of the country's infrastructure, including power lines, running water and electricity, within seven days of the catastrophe.
Samak has been asked by the United States and Britain to act as a go-between with Myanmar, but an attempt last week to arrange a visit to the isolated nation fell through when Samak was rebuffed by the junta.
Thai officials say UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was among the foreign power-brokers who had asked Samak to act as a mediator with the regime, which is accepting foreign aid but very few foreign relief workers.
"I did my duty to carry the message from the secretary general of the United Nations and from foreign diplomats," the premier said.
Samak's plane was also carrying medical supplies and 50 satellite phones to donate to the relief effort, officials said.
Meanwhile, Ban said on Wednesday at the UN in New York that he would call in representatives of several countries to discuss a strategy for getting cyclone-hit Myanmar humanitarian aid more efficiently.
"The magnitude of this situation requires much more mobilisation of resources and aid workers," he said. - AFP/de
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